The Montana Slaughter

[thecrittergitter]

Anyone else feel bad for the elk this year besides me? Holy crap, I wonder if any elk made it through this week. I'm so glad to see this final day come to a close. It has been a full out onslaught of big bulls this past two weeks in MT. In fact, I think anyone that got out of bed and went hunting shot a big bull this week. I wish season would have ended two weeks ago. In my drive from Missoula to Bozeman today, i saw at least 20 bulls in the back of pickups, most of them whole, and at least 1/2 of those bulls were well over 300 class bulls. I feel bad for the elk this year, many undeserving idiots got the best of them this year.................

 

[Spitz]

Dang. Wish I was one of this year's undeserving idiots! Hopefully I can be one next year.

The hurt has definitely been put on plenty of bulls over the last couple weeks.

 

[shoots-straight]

Even in the lowly Bitterroot, what was left of our elk got hit hard. Today wasn't a good day to be an elk.
Now on to those lion tags we have to fill.

 

[Horn Seeker]

I was one of those idiots!!!!

Not.

I do feel for the big boys that got hammered from the roads though. Dam... I saw a couple pretty nice ones in the backs of trucks whole....

We are supposed to have a killer winter... maybe some of these bulls would just winter kill or get eaten by wolves anyhow????

 

[Drake4]

They sure made up for the canceled late hunt in the Gardiner area this year as well. Big bull massacre down there.

 

[mdunc8]

I only saw a few bulls but they were all big 6s and one was a ridiculous 7 point. I can't even begin to guess how many cows I saw heading down the road this week. One little truck had three whole cows stacked in the back.

 

[TheTone]

A friend of mine from here was one of those idiots, he shot a 300 class six point on tuesday right off the road. Guy didn't work hard for the bull at all and now has the biggest of his life. Tough week for an elk in Idaho as well, the late controlled hunt by my place has been a slaughter.

 

[drahthaar]

I have said it before and I'll say it again, STOP THE YOUTH HUNT. It was a cow slaughter this week. A guy I know works the check station, he loves it when kids wearing sweats and sneakers are in the truck with their tag on a whole cow, while daddy is full snow gear and boots. Yeah, I wonder what happened. And he can't say a word.

 

[Big Fin]

It is seasons like this where I wish Montana had a mandatory reporting like NV and NM. Not that it changes what the elk kill is, but the data that could be provided would be excellent stuff. We used to have check stations in all areas in SW MT, but in the late 90's budgets cut that to nothing.

How they know the true harvest is beyond me. Yeah, I know they use modeling based on some phone surveys and the baseline history they have. But, so much has changed in the last ten years, I find it hard to believe they really know what the harvest was/is each year.

Wonder what the bull:cow ratios will look like if we have a hard winter, which if the last couple weeks is an indicator, could be like the winter of '96-'97?

Congrats to all who filled their MT elk tags this year. I think more tags were filled, than were not filled.

 

[drahthaar]

Jeez Fin don't even get me started. In this day and age of computers, technology, there is absolutely no excuse for not having hunters fill out report cards and report everything. And should be mandatory, fill it out, within 10 days of the close of the season, or you don't get your tags next year. What is going on here is ridiculous.

They even pulled the checkstation out of Hungry Horse, that took in all the folks hunting the south fork, middle fork, and coming back from the east side. But for god sake, keep the north fork station, nothing but a barron wasteland of burned lodgepole and no game.

Snow is piling up big time here at my house, this isn't funny at all. While shoveling my deck off, I could hear cow elk off in the timber already mewing back and forth. Dont usually hear that until Feb or March.

 

[thecrittergitter]

Mdunc8..............did it look something like these three idiots

Couple years ago, went hunting in a new area and after the hunt, we finished hunting that day and were driving out after not even seeing a fresh elk track. Almost back to the highway on an old forest service road and about 50 head crossed in front of us. Three of them didn't fare too good

I saw one guy that shot a bull this week that was 373 and it was his first elk. walked 30 yards from the truck, shot it, and had a couple guys help him load it. Pretty flippin sad!

With a few exceptions of course, many of the guys who hammered big bulls here the past couple weeks did nothing more than get out of bed, stuff down a few doughnuts and coffee, and go place their lazy arses in front of a bunch of elk that thought they were going to get fed some more cheetos or get another picture taken.................

 

[mdunc8]

It seems to me that creating a web based checking program would also be much more cost efficient than having a bunch of seasonal employees spending several weeks calling hunters. Not sure why they're sticking with the phones.

 

[mdunc8]

Haha. Nice picture. Very similar, but the truck was about half that size. Still trying to figure how it was bottoming out on the drive home.

 

[belly-deep]

You guys are making me sick, in a jealous kind of way.

I elected to deer hunt this weekend instead...should have went for a bull instead

 

[thecrittergitter]

Fin has a good point on the reporting, would like to see what this year really did........all i know is that if our FWP is so stupid to extend seasons on other years, there was no way they would shut one down early. Still wish they would have though.

 

[belly-deep]

Fin has a good point on the reporting, would like to see what this year really did........all i know is that if our FWP is so stupid to extend seasons on other years, there was no way they would shut one down early. Still wish they would have though.

You never know though.

I'm sure there have been winters with kill so severe hunters were grumbling that they should have been allowed to shoot more animals.

The bad news is, game animals are a fragile resource and are tough to manage with all of the external factors.

The good news is, they come back and in a few years similar numbers of big bulls will be running the hills.

Congrats to everyone that killed a whopper, opportunties like this don't come along often.

 

[----]

I saved a bulls life this year and will be eating my tag.
The deer hunting's been so good I haven't even bothered trying to fill my elk tag the last couple weeks. I'm sure I'll be regretting that when the big bull pictures are plastered all over the place.

 

[shoots-straight]

Our club has brought this "mandatory check" system up every tenative bi-anual. We'll do it again, and may be asking for support. It's silly that you have to call in and report, lions, bears, goats, sheep, moose, tag Marten, Bobcats, Otters, but elk and deer nothing.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I for one looked at my freezer and took into account the amount of bulls getting shot in the past two weeks here in region one. I had plenty of meat with my deer, bear, and antelope. I didn't feel the need to add to the slaughter so I didn't even try for an elk.

I was definitely rooting for the elk the past two weeks. I wonder what next season will be like?

 

[Horn Seeker]

I hate to see those big old bulls loaded whole.... I couldn't believe on Saturday how many douche bags were driving around town getting coffee and doughnuts at 11:30 am. Give me a fricken break. The day before at Noon, my legs were cramping from slogging though 15-30 inches of snow since 545 am, 1 1/2 hours later I was standing over my bull, knowing that the cramping and pain had just begun...

Idaho has a mandatory report. The MBA has tried to get FWP to do mandatory reports... there is NO reason not to do it.

Fricken A, they DIDNT even have the Gardiner check station open? WTF????? I didn't see a single game warden OR check station the entire drive from Gardiner to Billings. Unreal.